During my 8 years of Linux on and off usage I have tried more distros than I have chocolate bars. Each one of my previous encounters meant that I had to spend at least 2 days configuring before I have a desktop that I was somewhat comfortable with. With Ubuntu Feisty Fawn's latest test beta --for the first time ever-- this was not the case. I was up and running with all the niceties I wanted within 2 hours.

I read somewhere that this is being worked on. Currently, in ubuntu, you are given the option of using gparted (a graphical partition manager) on installation (although this has a tenancy to break, see below), OR you can just leave it up to the installer to get it right.

People are now working on rolling their own ubuntu-installer based partition manager that will nicely integrate into the installer and not break. Hopefully this new GUI partitioner will be as friendly as you want.